Grim Tales: The White Lady
Grim Tales: The White Lady is the 13th installment of the Grim Tales series. Introduction Upon opening the game, there is a cutscene showing outside the Evergreen mansion at night, before moving inside where shadows of a boy and a girl are seen roaming old and decrepit hallways of the house. Later, the boy unlocks the door and whispers: “Now you’ll see for yourself”. The girl seems scared, but the boy takes flashlight and points it towards a big portrait of a woman in white, chanting: “Elegant lady, dressed in white, show yourself to us tonight!”. Then black smoke surrounds them and the game logo appears. Plot The game starts with Anna relaxing by fireplace while drinking a glass of wine and looking at the photo of her nephew Billy, dressed like Scherlock Holmes, with his father Brandon. The phone rings, and Brandon is heard speaking, telling her that Billy went missing from Evergreen boarding school, and asking her to come and help find him. Anna gets in her car and arrives at Evergreen, which almost burned to the ground, where she meets Brandon and a woman named Kate, who tell her that all the children were evacuated except Billy and Kate’s daughter Sarah. The police thought that a short circuit caused the fire, but Brandon feels something more sinister is going on, and Kate divulges that Sarah kept talking about a ghost roaming the boarding school, calling her The White Lady. Kate dismissed it as nonsense at first, but now wasn’t sure, giving Anna Sarah’s drawing of the ghost she saw. Upon piecing it together, Anna is moved to the past, 12 hours prior to the incident. She sees the ghost of a woman in white and follows it to the school museum, where she notices she looks like Laura Mansfield who used to live there. Examining it, Anna learns that in 1936. a tragedy occurred at the mansion, causing the deaths of entire Mansfield family. Also, after examining the kids’ dormitory, she learns of Billy’s fascination with paranormal phenomena, and his determination to prove that the ghosts do exist, as well that he and Sarah set off to find the White Lady. Suddenly, the ghost appears again, asking Anna to follow her to a passage closed for the students. Richard helps Anna to unlock the door, saying that the woman is a phantom – a ghost out of time and space, advising her to follow her since the ghost wanted to show them something. After unlocking the door, she finds herself in a decrepit hallway shown in the introductory cutscene, with a dark passage and stairway to one of the living rooms. She repairs the stairs and finds a demolished room, with message “Don’t touch the children!” and various other threats to a certain Gabriel not to harm them. She then finds a flashlight, and as she’s about to enter the dark hallway, the lady in white appears again, shouting “Don’t touch the children!” as she rushes towards Anna. After finding her way through the dark hallways, Anna finds Billy and Sarah in an old gallery in front of a portrait of the lady in white, as the fire they don’t see burns behind them. Richard then appears and says he senses another ghost besides the lady in white, and believes that the fire was actually an arson commited by a malevolent ghost. Anna manages to put it out, but suddenly, the White Lady appears and shouts “Leave them alone!” before a dark spirit emerges from the darkness, knocking the White Lady aside and pushing Anna out of the past. Anna finds herself in front of Evergreen, and sees it didn’t burn down, when Richard appears and tells her that Billy wasn’t rescued and that he feels another ghost there. He advises Anna to get into the school and see if she can find anything there. Upon picking the door’s lock, she enters and sees Brandon and Kate looking for Sarah. As she approaches them, the door to the closed area crushes, making it impossible to pass through. Anna talks to Brandon and Kate who tell her that Billy and Sarah weren’t in their rooms at roll call and they’re scared. Brandon asks for help and offers to look around outside with Kate while Anna searches inside, to which she agrees. She opens the door to history room and finds a boy named Tommy who tells her that, since history was his favorite subject, Billy asked him to try and find out how ancient people used to fight ghosts. He gives her a piece of parchment which should serve as a trap for the ghost after salt and glowing phosphorus are added before wishing her luck and returning to bedroom. Investigating further, she finds the art room with a painting by Billy torn. Richard helps her find some of the pieces with a sarcastic remark: “What would you do without your dear father?”. She pieces the painting together to reveal the picture of the gallery where they met the ghost earlier. Using it as a portal, she gets to the gallery to see the kids floating in a blue energy ball. As she’s about to get them, the White Lady appears and throws a chair at Anna, shouting: “Leave the children alone!”. Richard appears and fights the Lady, instructing Anna to prepare the trap and give it to him. She finds the missing parts and gives to Richard who activates it, traping the White Lady in magical shackles. Terrified, the Lady begs them to stop saying they’re making a huge mistake as the dark ghost approaches, taking the children away through another passage before causing an explosion which blocks their way there. Richard senses something is still wrong despite the White Lady no longer being a threat and advises to follow the ghost. Anna manages to make a dynamite and uses it to clear the way to an ancient hall where she and Richard see the ghost taking the children to some big mysterious machine before putting magic protection around it. Richard warns that they’ll need to come up with a plan because the ghost is very strong. They realize that the White Lady can help them and they only helped the evil spirit by trapping her. Ultimately, they decide to look around and find the ghost’s lair, and with that, the way to free the White Lady. Anna finds a key which opens the door to Gabriel’s study, and inside, spell notes. She finds the Abyss spell and places it into a magical green ball which then gives her the Abyss key she uses to free the White Lady. She and Richard talk to her, and she says that she was trying to protect the children but that Anna and Richard undid everything because that’s just what the Count was waiting for. Richard, however, doesn’t remember ever hearing of him before and is curios about how he got so powerful. The White Lady promises to tell them their story, and then gives her pendant to Anna as a sign of trust before leading them to a torn family photo in Gabriel’s study. After Anna restored it, the Lady told them the story: once, the mansion was a vast estate named Evergreen. She and her husband Gabriel lived a peaceful life there, and they had two wonderful children. They were happy until one day Gabriel told her he was sick. She resigned herself to the inevitable tide of time and tried to help Gabriel do the same, but he was obsessed with eternal life. He worked constantly, using his knowledge of dark magic and engineering. He devised a ritual that would allow him to eat the souls of others to keep him alive. Eventually, he drifted away from his family. The struggle for eternal life created a struggle between good and evil in his mind. Books on dark magic promised him immortality for the sacrifice of his children, and he obeyed. He developed vessels and placed his children into them. Then he completed his horrible ritual. When Laura found the children dead, she tried to destroy his machine because even though she loved him, she couldn’t abide by what he had done. Gabriel attacked her and accused her of destroying his life’s work. Her soul remained at the mansion after her death. Gabriel slowly recovered his strength and returned from the world of the dead. Now he calls himself the Count. His mind is clouded by the power of dark magic. And now he wants to return to the world of the living and select the most talented children to make them join him. After the White Lady told her story, Anna talks to Richard who warns her that the Count is into some really powerful black magic after seeing the magical green ball and noting that his father Samuel hunted it down. He then tells her she will have to move further into the past to prevent the whole catastrophe before it even begins, but that she will also need to find certain items before conducting the ritual to move to the past, giving her the list of ingredients. Knowing it would be useless to attack the Count in present time, Anna finds the ingredients and moves to the past. She finds herself in one of the halls and sees green smoke coming from the nearby closet. She opens it to see it’s actually a secret passage, but is missing a handle. She manages to unlock a nearby bedroom to find the whole Mansfield family there diring a family dispute. She finds the missing handle there and opens the passage to see that Gabriel already started building his infernal machine. Richard appears and states that the device must have some weakness which will help destroying it. After a short search, Anna finds drawings of the machine which stated that panels would come out if the wrong punch card is used and that its copper tubes are fragile. With that information in her hands, Anna breaks one of the tubes to help her search higher area of the machine and releases stuck punch card with acid, damaging it in process, and uses it to make the panel come out. The machine explodes, making it useless, but Anna’s triumph was cut short when the Count returns from the present, saying he sensed something was wrong and that she won’t stop him. Just then, spirits of Richard and Laura appear to hold the Count back. Richard says that they won’t last long and throws Anna an artifact that used to work as a talisman, instructing her to restore it. She fnds the missing glowing stones for the talisman and returns at the very moment the Count knocks Richard and Laura away, rushing towards Anna, who uses the talisman to destroy the Count once and for all as he shouts in pain before she returns back into the present to the hall of the school with all the staff and students around and Brandon thanking her for saving Billy. Bonus chapter The Collector’s Edition of the game features a bonus chapter which serves as a prequel to the events of the main game, and also the whole series. Its events also take place at Evergreen, which was named Evermoore, and was an institute of magic at that time. This time, the player takes control of Richard, who was a student at Evermoore at time. The introductory cutscene shows a young Richard with a girl named Alessia taking a walk, implying they were in a relationship. They are seen walking towards the Institute when a lightning strikes, and another boy, revealed to be young Gabriel Mansfield, rushes outside shouting them to run since the school was attacked as the door slams shut behind him. The couple approach Gabriel, but suddenly a black smoky creature gets outside and sets a fire between them. Alessia is scared, but Richard manages to set free a phoenix from the nearby cage, who then absorbs the fire as Gabriel thanks his friend. Upon reuniting, Gabriel says that the school was under attack and that all students are being evacuated, adding that he thinks that a creature that was being kept in the basement broke free. Alessia remembers that despite the students are being evacuated, the professor Lumberwick was still inside, begging Richard to help him as they owed him their lives. Gabriel agrees with Alessia and assures Richard he will keep her safe and offers to check the basement while he goes in after Lumberwick. Richard agrees and after unlocking the door and entering the building, he sees an image of prof. Lumberwick inside a magical cloud, saying he has an important message for him and he should meet him in the tower before the cloud disperses. As the stairs to the tower were destroyed during the attack, Richard finds a magical broom and rushes to the tower only to find the professor on his deathbed and sees the smoky creature again. Lumberwick says he knows he will die, saying there was a plot against the Institute, and informs Richard that a parasite who is able to infiltrate people and destroy their bodies and souls from within, named Obsess, was released from the basement, adding that at one point he spent a lot of his strength to trap him. Believing only Richard was able to stop him, Lumberwick gives him a potion, saying it will help him find the answers he needs. Before he died, he gave Richard his last plea and warning: he must not let Gabriel do it. Saddened, Richard swears he won’t let the Institute be destroyed. Searching, he finds some more magic potions which he used to recreate Lumberwick’s capsule of memories. Using the memory pool in the tower, Richard was able to see professor’s memories, where Lumberwick narrates that Evermoore Institute of Magic was formed by world’s top wizards: Alister Dalimar, Gabriel Mansfield Senior, and Samuel Gray. Richard and his friend Gabriel were little boys then. For years, they ran the Institute together, teaching young men and women, but over the time, Alister Dalimar was lured by the potential of the dark mystical arts – black magic. This created a divide between them and eventually, they drove Dalimar from the Institute. It was Lumberwick who initiated the exile. When Gabriel’s father lost his wife, his mind became clouded. Alister promised that he could resurrect her and they began a deep study of black magic. This corroded their minds with the promise of immortality. Eventually, both Richard and Gabriel were sent to the Institute. Gabriel proved to be even more talented than his father, He learned quickly and had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. One day, Alister Dalimar appeared before Gabriel. He wanted to recruit the young boy, promising him knowledge and strength only black magic could provide. But Dalimar had one condition – he wanted revenge for his exile and he convinced Gabriel to free Obsess from his imprisonment, knowing that he would come after Lumberwick. He then finds Gabriel’s locket and uses it to open a secret compartment in his bed where he finds his friend’s diary which had a lot to say: Gabriel was excited to get started when he arrived at the institute, and over time, he and Richard became Institute’s best students, according to Lumberwick. However, Richard didn’t think they should get involved with the dark side of magic. Later, he writes Richard’s not diligent enough and he fell in love with Alessia. Gabriel considered love just a waste of time, thinking that science is everything, and that he won’t have a family in the future as he had more important things to do. After that, he writes that Alister Dalimar appeared before him in a vision that night, and told him how he attended the Institute earlier but that Lumberwick kicked him out because of his interest in the dark magic. He also said that the source of great powers is hidden in the depths of the Institute. He’s seen them, as they were now running through him. He considered Lumberwick a pathetic liar, and Richard a bore as he spent all his time with Alessia and wouldn’t listen to him, not even imagining the powers hidden under his very nose. He then reveals he’s sick of pretending to be Richard’s friend, and his plans to free the most powerful creature there’s ever been and that Evermoore will be his. Fearing of what Gabriel might do, Richard blasts the gate to the basement open, and finds Gabriel keeping Alessia a hostage. Gabriel tries to convince Richard not to ‘fall for that old man’s lies’, telling him that Dalimar is his mentor and taught him more about the magic than Lumberwick ever could, calling him an idiot for forbidding the study of dark magic. He said that now nothing would stop him from learning, and wanted Richard and Alessia to help him run the Institute. Alessia already refused his offer, as did Richard. This angered Gabriel who then sent Obsess to distract Richard, allowing him to take Alessia to the ancient hall, locking the door behind him. Richard realizes he will have to destroy Obsess before going after Gabriel and finishes Lumberwick’s protection amulet. He finds the creature in the dungeon and manages to destroy him and find the key. He shouts at Gabriel not to harm Alessia and fires an energy ball towards him, but Gabriel splits it into several pieces, one of which hits Alessia in the head, killing her instantly. Aggrieved, Richard blames Gabriel, who says he never meant for this to happen, promising to make him a deal. He wanted to prove that black magic deserved to be studied and practiced, and offers to teach Richard a ritual that would resurrect her, but in return, he’d have to let Gabriel erase his memories of that day, forgetting all about him and Evermoore. He’d forget the pain, and the love, but Alessia would be alive again, thus explaining why he didn’t remember ever hearing of him in the main game. In pain, knowing that Alessia didn’t deserve to die, he agrees to perform the ritual and makes a magical triangular amulet which revives Alessia, as marks appear on Richard’s hands and face while he screams in pain. The scene then shifts to ’10 years later’ where a woman is seen sitting outside with two girls, as the camera zooms back to the other side of the window, showing now grown-up Richard in his study, narrating: “My name is Richard Gray. I feel my soul slowly filling with cold and darkness. How did I get these marks on my face? Why can’t I remember my past? I must find answers.” as he looks at the marks on his hand. The last thing seen is his mark glowing light blue on the black screen. Trivia * The Bonus Game revealed the reason behind Richard's involvement with dark magic and the force that drove the events in the first game. * With the exception of Richard, the character art-style is notably different from the previous installments, appearing less realistic. Category:Grim Tales Category:Elephant Games Category:Games Released in 2017